Bang & Olufsen Beosound 2 Vollebak Edition speaker

The Beosound 2’s distinctive conical design and driver architecture optimises performance as much as aesthetics. Its downward-facing tweeter is housed above an acoustic lens that disperses sound in a perfectly even 360° field.

Hidden inside the speaker shell are four custom-designed drivers – a woofer, two mid-range, and a tweeter – each powered by their own dedicated amplifiers. Together they deliver low-end punch, crystal-clear mids and high-frequency detail. The woofer at the base of the speakers fires downwards to bounce low frequencies off any surface the speaker is placed on, whether that’s wood, concrete or Martian regolith.

Using our speaker is simple and intuitive. Volume is controlled by spinning the top of the speaker like a dial, and you tap to play, pause or skip tracks. Crafted from a single piece of extruded aluminium, it's designed and engineered to last for decades. It’s also built for easy connectivity and long-term platform compatibility, ensuring seamless streaming and snag-free alien interfacing.

B&O have made art and industrial magic out of anodisation. A simple process in principle, it can create dramatic effects if you do it with care and precision. Left alone, aluminium naturally oxidises to create a protective layer of boring grey. But in a controlled environment, you can create a thicker, porous surface of aluminium oxide which can absorb dye. The result is a super beautiful, super tough metallic finish.

B&O’s anodisation plant has eight vats of electrified fluid – mostly water and sulphuric acid – that form a long, burbling line through the centre of Factory 5 at the company’s Struer HQ. mechanical arms dip aluminium parts into the chemical vats in a tightly controlled sequence, directed from what the team calls the “command bridge.” When current hits the tank, oxygen ions bond with the metal’s surface to create a new outer shell of aluminium oxide.

The anodising process creates a permanent and protective oxide layer one-tenth the thickness of a human hair. It makes the aluminium surface corrosion resistant and virtually scratch proof. The same process is used on spacecraft parts, camera bodies and in architecture. Anywhere you need lightweight metal that won’t degrade or lose its edge over time.

During the anodising process, dye molecules are absorbed into the microscopic pores of the anodised surface, then sealed inside. Unlike paint, which sits on top and flakes off, anodised colour becomes part of the metal itself. Pre-anodising adjustments in colour saturation and surface finish can shift the final effect from industrial matte to mirror sheen, ruby red to deep-space black. Or, if you try really hard, interstellar rocket burn.

Our reworking of the Beosound 2 speaker started with a moment of serendipity. “I was re-anodising a part that was supposed to end up with a standard deep black finish,” says Martin Schmidt, an anodisation specialist at Bang & Olufsen. “Instead, it came out with a textured, irregular surface, a mix of soft greys, grainy, swirly patterns, and darker streaks..” Schmidt showed the piece to Kresten Bjørn Krab-Bjerre, B&O’s Creative Director for Atelier. “He immediately saw something in it,” says Martin. “He liked the depth and unpredictability of the finish and asked whether it was possible to recreate.”

Recreating his serendipitous space-wear effect “kicked off a lot of internal experimentation,” says Martin. “But eventually we developed a way to reproduce it under controlled conditions. The process is very delicate. Let’s just say it involves some edge-case process parameters that most wouldn’t consider useful.” The complexities of that process also mean no two speakers come out exactly alike. Small shifts in temperature, voltage, surface prep and electrolyte chemistry mean each shell develops its own distinct surface pattern. Some with more streak and some with a deeper grain. All look like they’ve seen space action.